Blogging Motivation: 5,000+ Words A Week Challenge Is On! | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I hit 3,082 this past week. My goal is 3,500, so we'll see how this next week goes. Thanks for the motivation!

Post edited 7:33 pm – November 23, 2012 by Edward Antrobus

This challenge must be rubbing off on me. I was a little freaked out because I got a guest post out too late and it didn't get published. 700+ words that I was counting on to meet the goal this week! My first draft of this post stated with certainty that I was going to be short because I needed 1100 words and I only had a short tutorial left to write. Well, that "short" tutorial came in at 1300 words!

If You Can Read, You Can Cook

Broccoli Quesadilla: Recipe Sunday – 11/18 – 385 words

How to Thaw a Turkey the Day Before Thanksgiving: Tips & Tricks – 11/21 – 562 words

subtotal: 947 words

Edward Antrobus

Is P2P Lending a Scam – 11/19 – 1045 words

The Pros & Cons of No-Contract Cell Phone Plans – 11/21 – 1186 words

To Shop or Not to Shop: My Thoughts on Black Friday – 11/23 – 705 words

subtotal: 2936 words

SEAM Publishing

How to Get Published on Kobo – 11/24 – 1342 words

Subtotal: 1342 words

Total for week ending 11/24: 5225 words.

Assuming I can keep the pace up on If You Can Read, You Can Cook and Edward Antrobus, next week should be over 6000 words, as I'm planning another tutorial for SEAM Publishing and I have at least one guest post getting published.

Financial Samurai said:

Anybody else find it surprisingly soothing to have less commenters during the holidays so we can focus more? I'm kinda digging the silence. It's like being able to post whatever I want in peace!

If You Can Read, You Can Cook has never had a lot of comments, nor did Entry Level Dilemma. This being the first year of Edward Antrobus, which does get comments, the taper off feels disconcerting!

Whew, I just (mostly) finished transferring my blog from Blogger to Wordpress. That was a lot harder than writing 5,000 words/week for me. 

Hank Coleman said:

I think that today's blog post is the longest that I have ever written with over 2,000 words. I just made it.

That was me last week. I wrote my first ever 2000+ word post and just squeaked by with 5001 words. But you've made a great improvement over last week. Congratulations.

I actually fell a bit short of what I had hoped, but still above the 5000 word threshold and more than I would have

written if I wasn't doing this challenge. I've decided to start writing some guest posts for a site that wants short ones – 

I'm finding that this takes a lot more time (for the number of words written)than longer posts. I'm thinking about trying 

to also write at least one guest post on other blogs in the coming weeks.That would definitely be a habit I would like to 

get into. 

Week 2 11/18 – 11/24

SavingAdvice

"20 Ways To Help Your Favorite Nonprofit Organization For Free" 11/20/12 2551 words
"Why Did You Shop Black Friday?" 11/23/12 808 words

TimeshareTrap

"Good Reasons To Buy A Timeshare" 11/20/12 580 words

NationalParksBlog

"Temporary Graffiti Death Valley National Park" 11/21/12 350 words

HelloKittyHell

"Hello Kitty Tipped Bullets" 11/18/12 233 words

StrangeWaysToMakeMoney

"Credit Hustling" 11/23/12 444 words
"Test Drugs" 11/23/12 539 words

NoSpendDay

"No Spend Week" 11/24/12 608 words
"Ongoing No Spend Day" 11/24/12 715 words

Guest Posts

"Fee Free National Park Days for 2013 Announced" 11/18/12 283 words
"Thanksgiving Meal Costs Rise Slightly" 11/18/12 310 words
"Black Friday 2012 Shopping Strategies" 11/18/12 341 words
"Buy Nothing Day: The Anti Black Friday" 11/22/12 266 words
"Will Birth Control Pills Be Sold Like Condoms?" 11/24/12 402 words

Total Words Week Two: 8,430

Financial Samurai said:

Savingsadvice – Fascinating stuff. Do you own all these blogs like HelloKittyHell or are you a niche site freelance writer? Curious to know how you get 266 word guest posts accepted and on which sites. Could be an interesting strategy that I haven't considered. If I can find blogs that can accept 200-300 word guest posts, I'm going to take a look!

One of the goals of this challenge is to encourage bloggers to write meatier content on their main site to build authority and do better in search down the road. Hence, I'd like to get some insights as to why you're going thinner instead. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thx! Sam

I own all of these sites. One of the biggest challenges I have is that I have so many (probably too many) that keeping them up to date is a challenge. Some are blogs, but a lot of them are stand alone sites that I create from the content that I write on my regular blogs (rewritten) and then simply leave them as a niche site (that is what nospendday and strangewaystomakemoney will be) once they have 10 – 20 pages.

I don't think that I'm going thinner — a 2500 word post I would consider meaty ;) But I understand what you're saying. Some blogs to lend themselves to shorter posts — HelloKittyHell is definitely one of those. Then it's a question of meaty content on some sites and then none on others, or regular sized posts on all. I determine that by an estimate of what the post might be worth in the long run. For example, I could write some very long and detailed posts on NationalParksBlog and would love doing so, but that blog simply doesn't make much money (at least at the moment), so it wouldn't be a good use of my limited time.

So at the moment, I am trying to make sure that I get content on all of the blogs on a regular basis (at least once a week) and if I can get into the habit of writing more, I should be able to expand on them to make them meatier — baby steps. My goal currently is to produce at least one real meaty post a week and hopefully 2 on the main blog and then get up as much content as I can on the other sites I have — it would be very different if I was just doing content for one or two blogs, but since I am for dozens I have to think a bit differently.

Checking in this 2nd week. This was a doozy for me! 

Couple Money

• 11/18 Don't forget to Use Your Flexible Spending Accounts -> 502 words
• 11/19 Buying a New Digital Camera -> 1,320 words
• 11/23 Retire Sooner By Growing the Gap -> 1,735 words
• 11/25 Enjoying a Day at the NC Zoo -> 533 words

Total: 4,066 

My Financial Reviews

• 11/21 Heart of the Carolina Food Drive -> 514 words
• 11/23 ING Direct's $125 Bonus ->404 words

Total: 918 words

Week 2 Total: 5,008 (just made it!)  

I literally worked until tonight getting these posts done. Being accountable to everyone here on the forums gave me the push to get them finished. 

With 5 guest posts that have to be written next week, I should reach my goal easily. Ironically when I write guest posts for TurboTax and others I'm sometimes inspired by the topics and then write in more detail for my sites. 

Financial Samurai said:

* It feels surprisingly good to have less commenters, especially during more touchy subjects. Takes a lot of effort to moderate comments. Use the time responding to comments to write more posts.

* Holiday traffic is slow, which really emphasizes that a lot of surfing is done during work hours. A blogger's goal might therefore be to have the lowest unemployment rate possible so people can slack off at work!

* Burnout meter is rising. 7 a week is probably too much, but it makes 5 a week seem easy now.

7 posts per week, especially with such high length as you typically have, seems like it would get pretty old pretty fast. Remarkable job so far.

MoneyBeagle said:

md said:

I noticed that you need to jump on ideas as soon as they hit! There's no time to waste. I keep track of all of my random ideas on my cell phone.
 

I've found this to be very true lately.  I used to have a sheet of paper where I'd jot down ideas, and could go to it and find a topic that I wanted to write about when I was short an idea.  Lately, though, I've found that if I get an idea and write about it the same day, the content is much more 'alive'.  It's almost as if going through the 'sheet' gets me more going through the motions.  So, timing is definitely key.

Haha. I had an idea hit yesterday that I knew I still needed to research, but I wound up writing over 200 words in the intro before I realized it.